Today in media history: President Nixon resigns

August 8, 1974In the early evening CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite reports that President Nixon will announce his resignation.

At 9 p.m. President Nixon delivers a televised resignation speech from the White House Oval Office.

August 9, 1974

WASHINGTON — Richard Milhous Nixon, the 37th President of the United States, announced Thursday night that he had given up his long and arduous fight to remain in office and will resign at noon today, less than two years after his landslide election for his second term.

Gerald R. Ford, whom Nixon nominated for vice president last Oct. 12, will be sworn in today at the same hour as the 38th President of the United States to serve out the 895 days remaining in Nixon’s term.

Nixon, in a conciliatory address on national television, said he was leaving not with a sense of bitterness but with a hope his departure would start a “process of healing that is so desparately need in America.”

Nixon, 61, appearing calm and resigned to his fate, became the first president in the history of the republic to resign from office.

– “Nixon Resigns”
A story excerpt from the St. Petersburg Times and the New York Times News Service

Page One from the St Petersburg Times (Tampa Bay Times)

Page One from The New York Times

Page One from The Washington Post

Page One from the Chicago Tribune

National Archives Image

After the resignation became official, copies (unsigned) of the resignation letter were handed out to the media by the White House press secretary’s office.

August 5, 2014

Almost a decade after Richard Nixon resigned, the disgraced former president sat down with his one-time aide and told the tale of his fall from grace in his own words.

For three decades, that version of one of the nation’s largest and most-dissected political scandals largely gathered dust — until this week….to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Nixon’s resignation, portions of the tapes will be published each day by the Nixon Presidential Library & Museum and the private Richard Nixon Foundation. The postings begin with Nixon recalling the day he decided to resign and end Saturday — the date of his last day in office — with the 37th president discussing his final day at the White House, when he signed the resignation agreement, gave a short speech and boarded a helicopter for San Clemente, California.